At 06:10 pm 26-02-05 -0500, Jed wrote: > A mainstream CF researcher asked Ed Storms and I to > tone down or remove the Manifesto we posted on Thursday, > "THE DOE LIES!" I asked Mel Miles whether he thinks it > is over the top. He replied with a very depressing message. > He says he understands why traditionally minded academic > researchers may feel this is excessive, but he thinks the > Manifesto is justified, and he agrees we should leave it.
<snip> >As for what else we can do . . Does anyone here have suggestions? <snip> I have a suggestion - but you will probably find it far too Machiavellian. I believe, and I speak from real life experience, that the best way to get people's attention is to scare the shit out of them. As an illustration consider this personal history. ============================================= When I was working in the Structural Division of the Building Research Station, my particular section was charged with the responsibility of anticipating systemic structural failure before they happened. Our cutting edge research on concrete had shown that existing ideas about concrete failure were seriously defective. This had relevant implications for the safety of the British AGRs (Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors) since they use prestressed concrete for their pressure vessels. However, though what we had discovered suggested that AGRs weren't as safe as people imagined, I wasn't to fazed about it since I didn't live near one. <g> However, Chernobyl and a BBC TV programme on the Hartlepool AGR which described how they were tightening the loose tendons (rather than loosening the tight ones) brought home to me the frailty of human endeavours. I acquainted my division head with my views just in case he ever came across more detailed information of problems in that area. Some years later we had a re-tread Director (from Porton Down) who happened to read one of my way out internal notes to which he took violent exception. So much so that I was banned from internal publication on my own authority. As you might expect this really pissed me off. So, to his utter fury, I appealed against the decision on the grounds that the suppression had implication for the safety of nuclear reactors. Now about that time there had been a lot of worry about civil servants whistle blowing by taking information on internal shenanigans to the press. To reduce this leakage an appeal system was set up giving every civil servant the right of appeal to the very head (Permanent Secretary) of his Department. Furthermore, if the PS saw fit, the appeal could proceed all the way up to the Head of the Home Civil Service and Cabinet Secretary, Robin Butler himself, (now Lord Butler) and, not unnaturally in view of the subject matter, the buck was passed right to the top. Nigel and I finished up in the RB's room in the Cabinet Office explaining the problem. Needless to say poor Robin was as out of his depth as Christopher Robin would have been. He was very nice about though but explained that he had no choice but to rely on the advice of his underlings. On its journey our appeal went through the scrutiny of a supposedly "Expert Committee" (what a farce that was but I'll save that for another time) with the inevitable fudge that I was given 15 weeks to write a paper going into the reasons for my concerns in greater depth. I said I needed 2 years to do the job properly (that being the time to my retirement ;-) ) and if they weren't prepared for that then they obviously weren't taking the matter seriously. There the matter rested. ============================================= So if you want to get people's attention, all you have to do is to point out to the great unwashed, in as lurid a way as you can, that if the Evil Empire harnesses Cold Fusion before the US, they will all finish up reading the koran and wearing chadors. It's no good saying "the development of small CF bombs is unlikely". Until we know why and how cold fusion works we are only guessing as to what's likely and what ain't. The point is, since nine-eleven the American public are running scared. Why else do you think that they re-elected Bush. They are scared that next time things will be nucular (to use my favourite Bushism). And the more extreme religious right are probably even more scared that muhammadan hoards are going to come sweeping across America as they did across Africa in the middle ages. You need to play upon that fear - just like the insurance companies play on the fear of all sorts of unlikely injuries and happenstance. And if the claimed percentages for belief in flying saucers and little green men is true (we may even include some Vortexians) then the evidence of a group of respectable scientists who are prepared to stand up and shout FIRE is bound to be effective. After all, there's a damn sight more reliable evidence for CF than for UFOs. I recognise, of course, that my good advice will most probably fall on deaf ears. Good scientists do not generally have the stomach for street fighting. They believe in sticking to the Queensbury Rules. The idea of kicking an opponent in the goolies while he's got his jacket half off, fills them with horror. Signs of wimpishness were all too evident when the term CF was dropped and replaced with LENR. Who the hell has ever heard of LENR? When I first saw that acronym I misread it as LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) as all Brits of my age naturally would. Instead of retreating you should have attacked. You should have seized the insult and worn it as a badge of honour. You should have done what the British Tommies did with Lily Marlene when they adopted it as their marching song, what the Tories did, what the Papists did. You wrote "I asked Mel Miles whether he thinks it is over the top." Goodness me! You sound like Ned Flanders. All credit to Mel Miles for his gutsey reply. Why on earth did it depress you. This whole thing reminds me of my government's plans to privatise the Building Research Establishment. As a preliminary BRS started doing some work for private firms. In typical scientific fashion they worked out the cost and added ten percent. What idiots! If you want to survive outside government service you don't charge what the thing costs, you charge what the market will bear. And you don't employ the kind of people who gravitate to the secure tenure and tax supported employment of government service either. They are generally far too wimpish and honest for the thrust and cut of the industrial jungle where only the fittest survive and the weakest go to the wall. And if this post seems rather unkind, I can only echo what my head master used to say when he beat me. "This hurts me more than it hurts you, Grimer." General George Patton might not have been PC, but, in a war, I wouldn't want to be in any other army - even if he did slap me around a bit. ;-) Cheers, Frank Grimer
